The spate of cold weather that has lasted for weeks in many parts of Europe has now claimed at least 600 lives. Eastern Europe is the worst affected. […]

In the Ukraine, more than 150 deaths have been registered. Sixty-eight people have reportedly died in Poland from the cold, 64 in Russia and an estimated 70 in Belarus. In Romania, the official death toll has risen to 68. In Lithuania, 23 deaths have been reported, 24 in the Czech Republic and 10 in Latvia. At least 16 people have died so far due to the cold in Bulgaria, 13 in Hungary, and a total of 50 in the successor states of Yugoslavia.

Italy has also been severely affected by the cold, with 40 registered victims.”

­The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia. Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.

The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.

…more than 50 people have died from weather-related illnesses. During the cold snap, which started over a week ago, 722 people have been injured, 371 have been hospitalized and 56 have died, RIA-Novosti reported Thursday…”

Not only Eastern Europe and Russia are being battered, but so is the US and Canada. The USA Today reports that so far a storm has left “at least eight people dead, clogged highways and forced hundreds of flight delays and cancellations at airports. The storm was blamed for deaths in at least five states, with parts of Iowa and Wisconsin hit with more than a foot of snow.”

I’ve a feeling that deaths from extreme cold in the former soviet bloc are being significantly under-reported due to bureaucratic inertia. It will only be possible to get even a ball-park figure when the death certificates can be turned into data in the late Spring.

I’ve lived in northern Japan for 8 years. Normally it starts snowing in the last week in December. This year it started in the first week and we’ve had about a metre already. Snow here is a serious business, last winter we had more than 16 metres in town.

We get this volume because the winter weather pattern is for a NW wind from the central Siberian high to load with moisture as it crosses the Sea of Japan, and dump when it meets land. Americans know this as the “lake effect”. Super-cold early start for winter in Russia, early start for snow in Japan.

The Russian RT reported that the temps were 10 to 15 degrees lower than normal. That doesn’t seem like a lot too me. And it snows every year in Istambul. It is close to the same latitude north as New York City.